


He Who Fights With Monsters

by Scribblesinink (Scribbler)



Category: Supernatural
Genre: Case Fic, Episode Tag, Gen
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2008-05-08
Updated: 2008-05-08
Packaged: 2017-10-04 15:02:55
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 14,499
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/31534
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Scribbler/pseuds/Scribblesinink
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Dean disappears, and to save his brother, Sam has to confess to crimes he's not guilty of.</p>
            </blockquote>





	He Who Fights With Monsters

**Author's Note:**

> Author notes: A word on the timeline that is somewhat... fluid... in SPN verse: I'm using Killa's [main overview](http://seacouver.slashcity.net/killa/spn_s2_timeline.html) as a basis, which places this story at some point in May 2007, near the end of season 2, but (obviously) before _All Hell Breaks Loose I_ and _II_. Thanks to [inimicallyyours ](http://inimicallyyours.livejournal.com) for the great beta, [erinrua](http://erinrua.livejournal.com) for typo-patrol and betaing, and [tanaquisga](http://tanaquisga.livejournal.com) for encouragement. Remaining errors: all mine.

_Prologue_

The watery sun that peeked through the clouds did nothing to dispel the freezing cold hanging over the cemetery. A gust of wind made frozen branches creak and whisper. A small group of mourners huddling around an open grave tucked their heads further down their collars and shoved their gloved hands deeper into their pockets while they listened to the minister's droning voice.

"In the midst of life we are in death. Earth to earth, ashes to ashes, dust to dust."

The girl stood among them at the front, next to the grave. The mourners had formed a half-circle behind her, honoring an invisible line that none dared cross, and thus, surrounded by people, she seemed to stand alone.

_Poor thing. An orphan now. And still so young._

It was as if she could hear their thoughts in her head, louder than the soft-spoken words of the burial ceremony. She didn't want their pity. She didn't want… She wanted him back: alive, whole, smiling at her. And if she couldn't have that, she—

"Kerry."

Someone added a gentle nudge to the whisper of her name. Kerry gave a quick start, realizing she had zoned out, disappearing mentally from the cold graveyard that was to be her father's last resting place. The minister was looking at her expectantly, and she gave him a small nod to tell him she understood. She leaned down to scoop a handful of fresh dirt from the pile. It was hard, half-frozen already, and cold even through the thick leather of her glove. She sprinkled it over her father's casket, the sound of the clod hitting wood loud in the stillness of the cemetery. There were no words. There was nothing she could tell him, not any more. Some monster had seen to that, some evil being, tearing out his throat so he bled to death on the carpet of his own study, his life's blood soaking into the wool until the stain would never come out.

"Kerry, sweetie."

Another nudge, and someone took her by the elbow to steer her from the open grave and back toward the line of sleek black cars waiting to take the mourners away.

"I'm all right," she said, shrugging off the hand.

A man was hovering beside the open door of the car that would take her home.

Home… She nearly laughed out loud at the thought. That large, empty house filled with distant relatives she didn't know, and family friends she hadn't seen in a long time—not since her mother died, at least. That house was a home no longer.

"Kerry, I'm so sorry." The man scuffed the toe of his boot against the pavement. Someone had attempted to clear the sidewalks of snow and wet asphalt shimmered beneath refrozen slush.

_Herman_. His name was Herman. She remembered him now. A big, hulking man with broad shoulders, a thick belly and ruddy cheeks that the cold northerly wind had reddened further. One of her dad's old hunting buddies.

"We, um, we want you to know we'll get the fu—um, the bastard." Herman gestured vaguely with a hand to include two other men that waited nearby. She recognized them too. Danny, the tall skinny one. And Carlos, a brown-skinned Cuban from Florida. "Your dad… he was a good man. A good hunter."

She nodded, not trusting her voice enough to speak. Hunting was what got him killed. There wasn't a glimmer of doubt in her mind that the police were wrong, and she knew there was no doubt in the minds of the three men that stood nodding and shivering in front of her: it hadn't been a drifter who slashed her father's throat. A drifter would have left prints. Stolen the silver. Taken her dad's weapons.

A drifter would never have gotten close enough to him in the first place.

While her dad might've given up hunting after her mom died, he never lost the skills or the instinct. _Trust your gut, Kerr,_ he'd frequently tell her when she was a little girl sitting on the bottom step of the staircase and watching him pack for yet another trip. _Trust your gut, it'll keep you safe._

"So, um, me and the boys, we, um, we'd better go," Herman continued. "Before that fu—son of a bitch gets away any further."

Kerry nodded again. _You do that._

Their faces were grim, their eyes hard. Kerry knew they'd travel to the ends of the Earth if they had to, that they would leave no stone unturned to find the thing that murdered her father. The hunting community was like that: it looked out for its own because nobody else could. Yet she also knew that the chances of Herman and his friends ever catching up to her dad's killer were slim at best. Whatever it was, it had left no trace, nothing to go on except a dead body, a wrecked house and a smashed-in front window. There was only one place nobody had looked yet, one chance that she might get a lead on the murderer. But she wasn't about to share that with Herman. He'd been _her_ dad, her family. It was up to her to avenge him, nobody else.

o0o

"Mrs. McLeary, I promise I'll call if I need anything." Kerry forced the corners of her mouth up in what she hoped was an innocent, sad smile and narrowed the gap between the door and sill.

The elderly woman hesitated on the porch before she turned to go down the steps. "We're only across the street, child," she said over her shoulder. "So you come on right over whenever you want."

"I will, I promise," Kerry said again.

It was getting hard to keep her face from scrunching up in exasperation, and growing more and more difficult to hold back the scream that was struggling its way out from the back of her throat. But at last the woman relented and continued down the steps. Kerry closed the door quickly, before Mrs. McLeary could change her mind again. They meant well, the McLearys and Hermans and the Wandells from Illinois. But their ceaseless gingerly asking if she was all right, if there was anything they could do, that she only needed to call if she wanted anything had frayed her nerves to snapping point.

What she wanted was something that none of them could give her. What she wanted, not even God could give her. What she _wanted_ was her dad. Kerry rested her back against the door, closing her eyes briefly. The house felt empty. It was silent for what seemed the first time since that night she got home for the weekend, a blizzard on her heels, to find the house cold, dark, and filled with a nauseating coppery smell. It had been the smell of blood, a stink she could still detect beneath the odors of cleaning fluid and casserole. She shivered, turned on a few more lights, and started collecting glasses and plates to take to the kitchen and put away in the dishwasher. Several half-eaten casserole dishes were lined up on the counter, their contents stiff and coagulating. Her stomach turned at the sight—what was it with funerals and casseroles anyway? After her mom had passed, she and her dad had lived off the stuff left by friendly neighbors for days. If she never saw or smelled another casserole in her life, it would be too soon.

Determined, Kerry picked up the dishes, took them outside and dumped their contents in the trash can. _There_. Better.

She put the earthenware away and turned on the dishwasher. While it chugged through its cycle, she wiped the surface of the dining room table until it gleamed enough to reflect her image like a mirror, and put chairs to right. But at last, there was nothing left to do. Nothing, except—

Taking a deep breath, steeling herself, Kerry walked into her father's study, studiously not looking at the faint stain right in front of the double doors of the large, hidden weapons closet. After the police had finished their investigation, dusting everything with their special fingerprint powder and finding only slick surfaces, someone had cleaned up the room. They had scrubbed at the blood, taken out the debris of the shattered computer, swept away the fingerprint dust and straightened her dad's papers. The room looked neat, as if he could enter any moment to take a seat at his desk and do his finances.

Kerry collected a letter opener from a drawer. It was several inches long, sharp, and made of sturdy steel. She circled the desk and walked over to the far wall. She trailed the tip of her finger over the smooth wooden surface until she found the tiny crack between two panels and cautiously inserted the tip of the opener. She wrenched it until the left panel came loose. Kerry set the panel down and peered into the hole in the wall that had opened up behind it.

A sad but gratified smile formed on her face. She'd often teased her dad with being suspicious to the point of paranoia. Because who'd think about using a back-up camera when they had a state-of-the-art security system installed? But by God, now she was glad for his secretive nature. She reached into the opening and took out the tiny video camera that had been hidden behind the panel. Its lens had been scrunched up against a small hole drilled into the wood, the recording device motion-triggered so that the built-in memory card would last a long time.

Kerry took the camera into the living room and turned on the television. It took her a moment to find the right cable but a few seconds later she'd plugged in the camera and the screen sprang to life. Her father walked into view, the image sharp, full color. He put something away in his weapons cabinet and left the study again. A few seconds after that, the recording switched off. Kerry hit the remote and rewound a few frames before she froze it on a clear view of her father's face. She'd captured him in motion, and the background was blurred, while his gaze centered slightly left off camera.

"Oh Daddy," Kerry whispered, fighting back tears.

She hadn't cried yet, and she wasn't about to give in now. She'd bawled her eyes out for hours, days even, after her mom was first diagnosed with cancer, and then again once she passed away. It hadn't done her any good. Her mother was still as dead as ever, and now, so was her dad. She wasn't going to cry—but she was gonna get even.

Kerry hit _Play_ again. There were a few more scenes showing her father working in his study, filing clippings away or typing at his computer. She fast-forwarded through the footage, keeping an eye on the date in the lower right hand corner, and stopped when it reached the day before when the police said her father had died. She slowed to normal speed, watching as her father turned off the light and the camera went black on what was going to turn out to be his last day among the living.

In the next instant, it was all there. Kerry gasped; she'd expected it, hoped for it, even, so she'd have a clue as to what killed her father. But to see his murder happen in full color, on the large forty-inch screen in the living room was even more painful than she'd imagined.

And, shockingly, the murderer appeared human… Kerry didn't know what she'd expected to see, but it certainly wasn't a tall, handsome young man.

She held her breath as she watched the struggle, her dad getting in a few punches but the other guy was so much younger and stronger. So much more resilient. Her hand flew to her mouth and a sob escaped her when the knife flashed and blood spurted from a deep cut across her father's neck. The murderer wiped his hands on his shirt and disappeared from view, leaving her dad to bleed out on the carpet. He lay so still, so quiet, with only his chest laboriously rising and falling to prove that he was still alive, still holding on. But the movement was too subtle for the camera's motion detection sensors to pick up, and the screen turned black before her father blew out his last breath.

Kerry expected that was all there was to see, and she had no desire to watch herself find her father's corpse in the next scene. She reached for the remote, but before she could hit _Stop_, the screen flared up again. The date in the corner showed a mere day had passed since her dad died, two days before she found him. Two men with flashlights entered the study. One she recognized as the tall killer; the other, shorter, was someone she hadn't seen before. He knelt beside her father and rolled him over, looking oddly horrified. Then they searched the study. They found her father's weapons stock and rifled through his papers before they destroyed the computer and wiped their prints. After that, there was nothing, until she saw herself enter, still dressed in her overcoat and tugging off her gloves.

Kerry stopped the recording and thought about what it had revealed. So, there were two, not one, people involved in her dad's death. And both of them looked every bit human too. Perhaps the cops had been more right than she thought. They surely weren't drifters like the police believed, but they also weren't the kind of supernatural creature she'd been expecting.

She went back to the beginning and restarted the disk. She watched it again and again until the sight of the blood spurting from her father's neck no longer bothered her as much. She freeze-framed the scene and zoomed in to make out details. Too bad the camera hadn't recorded sound, or she could've heard what the two men were saying to each other. But an hour and dozens of viewings later, she knew their names.

Sam, the killer. And Dean, the sidekick who cleaned up after.

Those names, and the clear pictures she had of them, should be enough to figure out who they were and where to find them. After all, one of the finest hunters ever had taught her how to track someone.

She'd make them pay for what they had done.

**Chapter 1**

_Two months later_

The Sundown Bar &amp; Grill along Route 18 in northeastern Iowa was their kind of haunt: good food, cheap beer, pretty waitresses for Dean to flirt with and a quiet table in the corner for Sam. The Friday night crowd wore denim and leather and plaid, and they fit right in. Under normal circumstances, Sam found bars like this comforting and far less depressing than the silence of their motel room. A blend of classic rock and country from the jukebox mingled with the babble of conversation and the occasional burst of laughter, background sounds he could let wash over and around him without really hearing them. But tonight, the music jarred and the crowd seemed too loud, the noise grating against his ears. He took another sip from his beer and tried to shut out the music and the clamor from the throng celebrating the weekend. He opened his journal to a blank page and tapped the butt of the pen against his bottom lip before he started writing.

_Contrary to popular belief_, he jotted down, _Giant Vampire Bats aren't afraid of fire, although it'll kill them if they burn. _

Except they'd discovered that using a blow torch wasn't the best way to try to take out an entire nest, at least not without half of the beasts escaping first. Sam wondered how to write that down, a warning to future generations not to make the mistake they'd made earlier in the night.

Dean sauntered over from the bar, tossing the contents of a shot glass back before he put his hands on the table, leaned across and drawled, "Whatcha broodin' about, Sammy?"

Sam eyed Dean suspiciously and nodded at the glass in Dean's fist. "How many of those have you had?"

Dean smirked. "A few."

"Huh."

"You oughtta try it," Dean continued. "Local moonshine. Packs quite a punch. Dulls the pain some."

Sam's brow furrowed. "Should you even be drinking after the Vicodin you took?" The bats had clawed their way past Dean in their frantic effort to escape the fire they'd set to creatures' nest, and some had raked him pretty good, leaving deep gashes. Sam thought a couple of the cuts required stitches, but Dean had refused to go to the hospital.

"Not until I'm dead, or dying," he'd said, so Sam had patched him up as well as he could himself.

Dean waved off Sam's concern. "The pills don't do much good. This, on the other hand," he gestured at the glass, "does help."

Sam shrugged. "Suit yourself." It wasn't as if Dean ever listened to him when he got like this anyway. However, Sam said a silent prayer of gratitude that he'd been the one to drive them to the Sundown for a drink and something to eat, and that the keys to the Impala were buried in a pocket of his jeans.

"Anyway, Sammy." Dean bent forward further and lowered his voice conspiratorially. "Since you're too much of a dumbass t'notice yourself, I thought I'd tell you that there's a really hot chick over by the bar who's been makin' eyes at you all night." He brought his face close to Sam's. "Strawberry blond, slinky red dress, nice rack?"

Sam glanced past his brother and saw the girl Dean described leaning against the bar. She was staring at them but quickly looked away when he caught her gaze.

"Yeah? So?"

Dean chuckled. "This could be your lucky night." He wiggled his brows.

Sam suppressed the urge to roll his eyes. "How can you even think of sex right now?" he said.

Dean shrugged. "Why not? No night like tonight, is what I'm sayin'. C'mon, lighten up, Sam. We'll get the suckers next time."

"Yeah." Sam grimaced. "When God knows how many more people have died."

It could be weeks, months even, before they picked up the trail of the escaped bats. Plenty long enough for the beasts to find another cave or abandoned house in yet another distant small town to build a new nest. How many victims would the bats make before they found them again? Sam knew Dean felt the same way he did: they'd failed, big time. Dean just had a different way of dealing with things.

Dean pouted. "You," he said, "really are the life of the party, aren't you."

"Bite me." Sam scowled, but the glare simply rolled off of Dean.

"So," Dean continued, glancing back at the girl at the bar, "if you're not gonna take her up on the invitation, mind if I do?"

"Whatever," Sam said.

He really wasn't in the mood to deal with Dean's antics. He was sore; his abused muscles were growing stiff and achy, and all he wanted was to finish his notes so he could go back to the motel for another hot shower and a couple hours of shuteye. For once, Sam was tired enough that he didn't even care that the beds were way too short to accommodate him.

o0o

Dean hesitated a moment, but Sam's head bowed back over the journal and he began to draw a picture of a bat. The message was clear: discussion over.

"Spoilsport," Dean muttered, loud enough for Sam to hear him, but his brother continued sketching. Shrugging, Dean turned away. Well, he'd tried. If Sam wasn't interested, there was nothing stopping him from hooking up with the girl himself. She was a looker. And he felt horny; the pain medication seemed to conspire with the booze to further stimulate his already healthy libido instead of making him drowsy, as the leaflet from the pills had said they would.

He firmly shoved any thoughts of the unfortunate teacher and the three students who had died before they'd discovered the bat nest out of his mind. And he sure as hell didn't want to think about the people the escaped bats might kill before he and Sam found the trail again. Plenty of time to fret about that tomorrow.

Tonight was for fun and games.

Dean swaggered back to the bar and hitched himself onto the stool next to the girl in the red dress. He settled in close enough that his leather-clad arm brushed against her bare one as he planted his elbows on the bar. She glanced at him but didn't shift away, something he took to be a good sign.

Dean gestured for the bartender to pour him another shot of the local moonshine and tilted his head towards her. "You know," he drawled, keeping his voice low and deep, "you got a yen for the wrong brother."

This time, she did move, ever so slightly until he felt her eyes on him. "I couldn't help but see you watching him," he continued. "But lemme tell you a secret: Sammy's a big idiot who prefers the company of that dusty old book of his over a pretty girl like you. Your, um…" Dean's eyes shifted to her cleavage almost by their own volition and he forced them back up to meet her gaze, "…efforts are wasted on him."

The girl broke contact, the pressure on his arm disappearing. But she didn't leave; she merely swiveled around on her stool a little further and looked at him.

"Seriously?" Her voice was light, amused.

"Seriously." Dean nodded empathetically. "Me, on the other hand," he threw back the content of the shot glass and planted it back on the bar, "I'd really… appreciate… you." He waggled his eyebrows at the girl, smirking.

An expression he couldn't quite put a name to flashed across her face and a small furrow appeared briefly between her brows. She made a sound in the back of her throat that might've been a laugh, or it could've been something else. Dean held his breath. This was the moment of truth, where it was determined if he was gonna get laid tonight, or if he'd come on too strongly and merely succeeded in scaring her off. The moonshine had to be stronger than he'd thought, or he'd never have pushed so hard so early in the game. Even chances, he told himself, she'd call him a pervert and turn away.

She glanced back at Sam, chewing on her lower lip for a moment. Her teeth were white, even. Dean watched, mesmerized. With a wry chuckle and a shrug, she turned all the way 'round, flashing him a bright smile.

_Score!_

Dean let out his breath and applauded himself. Despite the booze, he hadn't lost his touch.

"Why don't you start by buying me a drink, then," she said quietly. "You know, to show me your… appreciation." She bent closer so her breath tickled his cheek. It smelled of beer and mint.

"Comin' right up." Dean shrugged out of his jacket, rolled the sleeves of his shirt carefully up over the fresh cuts crisscrossing his forearms—friggin' bats had got him good—and caught the bartender's eye to order them fresh drinks.

"I'm Dean, by the way," he said.

She leaned toward him until her breast brushed up against his upper arm. His body responded to the light touch, and Dean shifted on the stool for an even better position. She murmured in his ear, "I'm Kerry."

o0o

Sam paused from his drawing and put down the pen. He shook his hand to loosen it up, then grabbed the bottle and took a swallow from his beer. It was growing warm and he grimaced in disgust. On the other side of the room by the bar, Dean had his arm loosely draped around the girl's waist, his hand resting on her ass. He whispered something in her ear that made her throw back her head and laugh.

They slipped from their stools. The girl was tugging Dean along by his wrist, offering him a smile full with promise, and Dean followed her with a goofy grin on his face and none too steady on his feet. He caught Sam looking, and offered him a wink. Sam watched them go out the door, disappearing into the dark night.

He heaved a sigh.

Dean's horndogging should probably annoy him, Sam decided, but oddly, it didn't. Not really. Because he knew it was Dean's way of dealing with the frustration of a hunt gone bad as well as coming down from the adrenaline surge after a near brush with death. Whether it was to ascertain power, or strength or manliness, or if it was a way for Dean to simply remind himself he was alive, Sam didn't know. And the few psychology classes he'd taken at Stanford weren't nearly enough to help him map out the complicated emotional makeup of his brother. Experience, not science, told him that in ten or fifteen minutes, Dean would stumble back in with the girl. She'd still be smoothing her skirt, her lips red and swollen, eyes bright, hair mussed, while his brother'd be grinning like a loon and they'd smell of sex to anyone close enough to get a whiff. It was nothing he hadn't seen happen before.

Sam snorted a soft laugh, audible only to himself in the noise of the crowded bar. That was Dean, all right. Shaking his head, he drew the journal back to him, flipped to another blank page and started writing again. He planned on putting everything he could remember down in the hopes that some day, it would help someone somewhere not make the same mistakes when hunting a nest of killer bats. That was how Sam dealt with a botched-up hunt, and who cared that it was so completely different from Dean's methods? They were still brothers, and come tomorrow, they'd scour the newspaper for strange deaths and set out for another town, and another supernatural creature that needed killing. They might not be able to save everybody, but perhaps if they saved enough people, it'd throw a monkey wrench in Yellow Eyes' plans for him and the other kids.

Thinking of the demon that had killed his mother and girlfriend took Sam's thoughts to places he didn't really want to go, and he forced it from his mind. He gestured the waitress over to his table and asked her for another beer.

A few minutes later, she put a fresh bottle on his table. The beer was so cold that droplets of condensation had formed on the glass and trickled onto the table top to create a wet circle. Sam was careful not the slide the journal through the dampness as he once again concentrated on jotting down his memories.

Once he was done, Dean might be ready to go to their motel room and get some sleep too.

o0o

An hour later, Sam's fingers cramped up around the pen and he dropped it on the table. He'd finished drawing the last line on a sketch of a vampire bat in flight. His beer had gone flat again and he glanced at the bottle with disgust. He looked around the bar but didn't see Dean anywhere, nor did he see the girl in the red dress. Apparently, they hadn't returned yet, which was a bit strange and more than a little annoying. Sam was tired and stiff; he wanted to go back to the motel to get another shower. Perhaps if he scrubbed hard enough,it might wash the last stink of batshit off his skin. And the too-short bed with its too-soft, lumpy mattress was starting to seem more and more alluring.

Suddenly, Dean's sexcapades weren't so amusing. "Damn you, Dean," Sam muttered to himself. Around him, business was winding down as people called it a night and left to go home. He got up, collected the journal and walked over to the bar. The bartender said he hadn't seen Dean since he left with the girl, and presented Sam with a bill that caused him to utter another curse at Dean. How much did his brother drink, to rack up a bill like that? With a scowl directed at nobody, Sam peeled several twenties from his wallet and put them on the bar before he headed out into the night to search for Dean.

Like the Sundown Bar &amp; Grill itself, the parking lot had emptied out but the Impala was still sitting where they'd parked it. Dean was nowhere in sight. Sam strained his ears but other than the hoot of an owl and the roar of a motorcycle accelerating in the distance, the night was silent.

"Dean!" he shouted, and waited.

He got no reply. For a moment, concern nagged at Sam. Then he recalled the fevered look on Dean's face and the willing smile on the girl's as they walked out. Dean had probably gone home with her. It wasn't his usual modus operandi, but it also wasn't that far from the norm that it was reason to worry. Dean would show up again when he was good and done. Sam would've appreciated Dean telling him so, though. If he'd known he didn't have to wait around for his brother, he could've gone back to the motel earlier. He could've been asleep by now, instead of standing alone in an abandoned parking lot, wondering where Dean had gone.

Sam cast one last look around the lot, just to make sure, and dug the keys to the Impala from his pocket. He got in, turned the ignition and put the gear shift in drive. Dean was a big boy; he'd find his own way back to the motel.

o0o

A loud beeping pulled Sam from a strange dream in which he seemed to be chased by a garden gnome. Squinting feebly against the rays of sunshine that poured across his bed through a gap in the curtains, he grappled for his phone to turn off the alarm. It wasn't often that he managed to sleep through the night without grisly nightmares until the alarm woke him. Apparently getting worked over by a couple of vampire bats was as effective as any sleeping pill.

He gave a wry chuckle; perhaps he should trademark it.

Sam rolled over onto his other side, fully expecting to see Dean rub the sleep from his eyes and growl something about the light being too damned bright and him not getting up until Sam brought him strong coffee. Dean had had quite a lot to drink last night, and he'd be a pain to be around today. But when Sam's gaze landed on the other bed, it was empty. More than just empty, even: the bed was neatly made up, the covers smoothed out, like nobody had slept in it at all.

Sam's brows drew down. That was weird. Dean went home with the odd one-night-stand sometimes, but he usually staggered back in in the wee hours of the morning, cursing Sam awake when he bumped into some piece of furniture or other in the darkness. Dean must've really hit it off with this girl.

Sam pushed back the covers, swung his legs out onto the grimy carpet and padded to the bathroom, yawning. He thought he could still detect a faint whiff of batshit stink on himself. Perhaps another shower…? Catching his reflection in the mirror, he rolled his eyes at himself. He'd have no skin left if he kept scrubbing at it the way he had been. But at least he wouldn't smell of vampire bats any more either. In Sam's book, that'd be a fair trade off.

Once he'd scoured himself with hot water, soap, and washcloth until he couldn't stand it any longer and his skin was all red and blotchy, Sam switched off the water and toweled down. Dean hadn't returned while he was in the shower; the room was still as deserted as before, and a tiny worm of fear started wriggling in his gut.

He grabbed his phone—there were no messages—and scrolled through the numbers until he hit Dean's. His thumb hovered over the call button. Dean'd be cranky if he interrupted him during the farewell sex, but…

Sam's stomach growled, the sound loud in the quiet room, reminding him he hadn't had breakfast yet. He switched the phone off. He'd give Dean one last chance to return on his own accord. Besides, Sam didn't want to give his brother an excuse to say he was mother-henning. He'd never hear the end of it.

He stuffed his wallet into his jeans pocket and made a beeline for the diner across the street that advertised pancakes and waffles and freshly-brewed coffee. A cheery waitress led Sam to a table, and he made sure to get a seat by the window that gave him a view of the motel parking lot. If Dean returned to their room, Sam would see him.

He ordered the _Pancake Special_ and waited for his food to arrive. He looked out of the window at the motel, but there was still no sign of Dean. A chamber maid rolled out her cleaning cart and a family of four packed suitcases and weekend bags into the back of an SUV. The Impala in the parking lot gleamed dully in the early morning sunshine.

Sam fidgeted on the fake leather of his seat. At last, he dug up his phone and dialed. _Screw Dean._

Sam brought the phone to his ear. The call went through and rang, once, twice, three times. Then something clicked. Sam half-expected voice-mail to pick up but it was Dean's voice that came over the line. He spoke two words.

"Sam? Don't—"

**Chapter 2**

Waking brought Dean a world of pain. While he was out, a blacksmith had taken up residence in his head and was cheerfully pounding away at the inside of his skull, with what felt like a really big hammer. Dean couldn't feel his arms, but when he tried to move them, agony flared up across his shoulders and radiated along overstretched muscles. The bat cuts made themselves known again with a scratchy sting on his skin, but they were the least of his problems. He realized he'd been strung up like a ham and was dangling from his wrists, his shoulders taking the entire brunt of his weight. And from the way his body went from numb to sheer agony in 0.5 seconds as soon as he twitched, Dean figured he'd been like this a long time.

The room he found himself in was covered in shadows, and stank of damp and mold and old wood. The walls were made of rough-hewn logs, the bark still on them, and yellowed sheets covered the furniture. He glanced up. His wrists were tied with coarse rope that was looped around a hook someone had screwed into the heavy oak beam ceiling. Somewhere out of his sight a fire crackled in an attempt to banish the damp chill of an unused woods cabin. A gigantic moose head had been mounted on the wall opposite Dean.

Ignoring the pain in his shoulders, he tried to get his feet under him. The toes of his boots scuffed uselessly against the ground, never getting enough purchase to take his weight. Trying to stand caused him to twist and twirl crazily, though, and fresh pain blazed across his torso. A soft whimper wrung itself from his throat despite his efforts to keep it in.

Dull, dead moose eyes looked down on his efforts, and he glared back, opening his mouth to blurt out some snide remark.

Something moved in the shadows, and Dean snapped his jaw shut. He whipped his head around, regretting it instantly as the pounding inside his skull intensified and his shoulders twitched. Another moan escaped him. He squinted into the gloom.

What he'd expected, he didn't know. Some redneck blockheads like the Benders who liked to hunt human beings, maybe. Or a black-eyed demon with a shark-like smirk and a thing for torture. What he had _not_ expected to see, was the chick from last night.

Kerry slouched in an easy chair, one leg slung over the sheet-covered armrest. She was watching him, he could tell, though her eyes were shadowed. She'd changed out of the clingy red dress and had put on a pair of jeans and a sweatshirt that said Iowa State University. She looked younger and very, very human. In fact she looked like any odd American girl: normal. Except, Dean amended, for the big-ass knife she was twirling around in her hand, orange firelight glinting off the blade. _That_ was anything but normal.

"You know," Dean rasped, voice rough and tongue feeling like leather in his mouth, "if you wanted to get kinky, all you had to do was ask."

He wracked his brain to figure out how he managed to go from flirting with a hot chick in a bar to hanging suspended from a ceiling in a cabin, and having no memory of the in between. Not to mention that the hot chick was now toying with a wicked-looking bowie knife and wearing an expression that didn't bode well for him. She must've put something in his drink or something, he decided. Or maybe painkillers and booze really didn't go well together.

He wondered what her game was. The last thing he could remember was exchanging jokes and laughing with her while downing shots. He remembered making lewd remarks that caused her to giggle and rest a hand upon his thigh until he suggested they go outside for a bit more privacy. She'd been willing enough, he was sure. After that, he pretty much drew a blank, though he thought he might've passed out against a pickup truck.

"How…?" he began.

She uncurled from her seat, turning the knife around until she got a good grip on its hilt, and approached him slowly. Her face was grim, lips pinched together in a tight line, brows draw down. There was none of the flirtatious sauciness from the previous night left on her face

Dean pulled away as far as he could—which wasn't very far, given the little leverage he had.

"Whoa, sweetheart," he said, "put that thing away, would you. Before someone gets hurt. There's no need to go all Rambo on me, whatever it is, I'm sure we can talk about it."

In the privacy of his mind, Dean cringed. Apparently, he'd been taking more pointers from Sam and his sharing-and-caring attitude that he'd thought. Except he was pretty helpless to do anything else but talk and words were the only weapons he had.

Not that they did him much good. Kerry didn't respond; she didn't even acknowledge she heard him. She just kept coming, the hand brandishing the knife trembling ever so slightly as she raised it. Dean's gaze shifted back and forth from the blade to her face. There was no doubt in his heart what she intended to do with that damned knife—and cutting the ropes that held him wasn't it.

"What?" he asked. "What the hell are you?" If he was about to get gutted, he'd at least like to know what sort of creature finally got the better of him.

Kerry's features twisted, a wry, humorless smirk crossing her face so quickly he wasn't sure he'd really seen it.

"I'm not a ghost," she said, "if that's what you're thinking." Even her voice sounded different from the way it had the night before: harsher, harder. "Or a demon. Or whatever other supernatural creature you can think of."

"Then why?" The breath rasped through his throat and the strain on his arms as he pulled away from her became almost too much to bear, yet he refused to let go, to let himself dangle before her like meat on a hook. "What did I do?"

"Do?" She cocked her head, peering up at him. "That's the point: you did nothing. You let him—" She inhaled, sharply. It sounded like a choked-back sob. "And then you covered it up. Left him lying in his own blood for me to find."

She'd reached him, and there was nowhere left for Dean to go. The knife was cold as she pressed the blade against his throat and Dean didn't dare move. Hell, he hardly dared breathe. He stared at her, though, clueless as to what she was talking about. His brain scrambled to come up with a plan to get himself out of this. Something about her words tickled at the back of his mind but he didn't have time to examine it.

"Listen, Kerry," he said, giving her his best innocent look perfected over years of credit card scams and pool hustling, "I don't know what you're talking about, or what you think I did or didn't do. But—"

The shrill first notes of _Smoke On The Water_ blared through the room. Kerry gave a start at the sudden noise and the knife jerked against his throat. Dean gasped with pain.

The phone continued to ring.

"That'll be my brother," Dean wheezed. His throat stung where the knife had cut him and he could feel a hot trickle of blood on his skin. At least she hadn't caught the jugular. Not yet. "He'll be looking for me. Please, let me speak to him."

"Ah, yes, your brother. Sam." Kerry's lips twisted into something resembling a smile, a smile so grim and filled with hatred that Dean's stomach churned with fear. "He's the one I really wanted."

Suddenly, Dean understood. He remembered how Kerry had been trying to get Sam's attention first, not his. Thank God his brother was such a monk. If not, it would've been Sam dangling here strung up like some piece of meat in butcher's shop, ready to be bled like a pig.

"If you're gonna do this, do it. But please…" Dean didn't care if he had to beg. He had to warn Sam, tell him not to come looking for him. He no longer cared for Kerry's reasons but if it was his last act before shuffling off this mortal coil, he'd keep her from getting to Sam.

Kerry hesitated. The phone kept going. If she didn't answer soon, the voice mail would pick up and his last chance to speak with Sam might be gone.

"Please," he said again. He held his breath. Then the knife fell away from his throat and Kerry snatched his leather jacket from the chair she'd put it on. She found the phone, flipped it open and held it to his ear.

"Sam?" Dean failed to keep the hitch from his voice. "Don't—"

She pulled the phone away from him.

o0o

"Sam? Don't—"

The instant Sam heard Dean's voice, he knew something was very, very wrong. The diner's buzz faded to the background, as did the sound of the waitress chatting with the couple at the next table. Sam closed his eyes, pressing the phone tight against his ear, concentrating on what little he could hear over the line.

"Dean?"

A cold, female voice answered him. "An eye for an eye, that mean anything to you? Don't bother to call your brother again."

Before Sam could respond, there was a click and the line went dead. Sam stared at his phone, heart pounding in his chest and panic clawing at him. He hit redial, praying for Dean to pick up. It rang and rang and rang, until the voicemail cut in. _"This is Dean. Leave a message."_

Sam broke the connection and put his phone down, staring at the keypad. For a long minute, his brain simply refused to function. He upbraided himself for not taking action sooner. Dammit, he'd been worried ever since Dean didn't come back to the bar last night.

The waitress brought his blueberry pancakes and wished him a bon appetite, but Sam didn't notice. He was no longer hungry, and the food grew cold, untouched. He glanced outside, not seeing anything. He'd been right: something—or someone—had taken Dean God knows where. They'd had him for hours while Sam slept, for Christ's sake. The few words Dean had spoken weren't enough to convey any message, even in their secret emergency code, but the way he said them had been enough to tell Sam that his brother was afraid. And that in turn scared Sam more than anything.

He fought down the surge of terror that threatened to overwhelm him. Get yourself together, Sam Winchester, he thought. Right now, he was Dean's only chance, and if he let his big brother down… He didn't even want to think about that. Failing Dean was not an option. No, he'd have to approach this like any other hunt. If it wasn't Dean who'd disappeared, what would they do?

They'd start with the last time anyone had seen the person. He had to go back to the Sundown Bar &amp; Grill.

Sam slipped from the bench, dropped a couple of dollar bills next to the plate of untouched pancakes and his half-finished cup of coffee, and hurried out of the restaurant. He loped across the road to the Impala, thankful that at least he didn't have to waste time stealing a car. If the tone in Dean's voice was anything to go by, every second counted and time was a luxury Sam couldn't afford.

o0o

The drive back to the Sundown Bar &amp; Grill didn't take very long but with the Saturday morning traffic slowing him down it lasted much longer than Sam would've liked. Too early even for the heavy drinkers, the Sundown's parking lot was deserted. Sam left the Impala in the same spot as the night before and walked in. The place was empty, chairs upside down on the tables. Some female country singer played softly from the jukebox and behind the bar, someone was rubbing glasses to a shine. Sam squinted into the gloom, his eyes still adjusting after the brightness outside. He exhaled with relief when he recognized the girl behind the bar as one of last night's waitresses.

"Hey," he greeted her as he sidled up. She looked up from the glass in her hand and smiled.

"Hey. What can I get ya?"

"Um." He scuffed his feet. "Just some answers, if you will."

She quirked a brow. "Too early for you?"

"Yeah." Sam gave her a half smile.

"Well, what do you need?" She put down the glass and the cloth and walked over to him.

"I'm looking for my brother," Sam said. "He hasn't come home, and I can't seem to reach him. We were here last night, and—"

She cocked her head, looking him up and down. "I remember," she said. "Killer smile, leather jacket, kinda hot."

"Um, yeah." Sam grinned awkwardly. Though he failed to see what exactly it was that women saw in his brother, for once he was damned grateful they always seemed to remember him.

"He, um, he left with this girl," Sam continued. "Red dress, blond. I haven't seen him since."

The waitress laughed. "I remember her too." She lowered her voice. "Listen, I don't think your brother wants be found right now."

Right. If he didn't know better, he'd think the same thing. Hell, he had been thinking exactly that until he heard Dean's voice on the phone.

"Yeah." Sam gnawed his lip. "But, you see, it's important I find him, right now. It's… um… a family emergency."

The amused spark faded from her eyes. "Oh. I'm sorry." A small wrinkle of thought appeared between her brows as she scoured her memory. "I think I heard her name was Kelly. Or Kathy. Something like that. I don't know anything else. I don't think she's from around here. At least, I've never seen her before."

"Oh." Sam's heart sank. He'd hoped… But aside from a name that might or might not be correct, it was a bust, a dead end. And Dean—

"Hang on a sec," the waitress said. She pulled away, opened the door to what Sam presumed was the kitchen, and shouted, "Jerry!"

A few moments later an old man shuffled out of the kitchen. With the way his back was bent and his shoulders drooped, the top of his head didn't even reach Sam's chest.

"Yeah?" he croaked.

"This is Jerry," the waitress said, gesturing. "He helps out around here. He might've seen something." She turned to the old man. "Jerry, you were here last night, weren't you?"

Jerry nodded shakily.

Sam eyed Jerry dubiously. Rheumy eyes blinked back at him. The man looked more like he might be a charity case than a regular employee. Sam glanced at the waitress, and the slight shrug she gave him confirmed Sam's suspicions. But charity case or not, right now Jerry could be the best lead Sam had to find Dean. And so he launched again into his spiel about having a family emergency and the need to find his brother.

o0o

Sam soon learned that despite his appearance, Jerry was far more observant than either Sam or the waitress had imagined. "I r'member them," he'd said in a voice that cracked with age. "Pretty girl, she was. Was takin' a smoke outside when they came out. Left in a dark-colored pickup. Blue, maybe green." He glanced up at Sam. "Your brother seemed pretty wasted. She'd to help him into the truck."

"Did you see anything else? Anything that might help me find him?"

Jerry's wrinkled brow crinkled even further. "Car had Wisconsin plates," he said. "I r'member that. Don't know the number, though."

Sam rested a hand on Jerry's bony shoulder. "Jerry, I can't thank you enough."

Jerry cackled. "Just buy me a beer, and we'll call it even."

"Yeah. Sure." Sam gestured at the waitress to give Jerry whatever he liked before handing her a few bills and leaving the Sundown.

Once he got to the Impala, he scrabbled for a notepad and wrote down the bits of information he'd gathered.

_Kelly/Cathy sp? _

_Pickup blue/green? _

_Wisconsin_

_Eye for an eye (payback?)_

He doodled around the words idly, trying to decide on his next move. He knew he had to find the girl, talk to her. She was possibly the last person to have seen Dean before he disappeared.

Mind made up, Sam put the Impala into gear and drove back to their motel. It was one of many in a long strip of motels and gas stations and diners along the road leading out of town. He kept an eye out for a blue or green pickup with Wisconsin plates along the way but didn't see it. Back at the motel, he spared a few minutes to clean out their room, throwing clothes and weapons and toiletries haphazardly into duffel bags without really paying attention as to what went where. He was too much in a hurry to care.

After stuffing the bags into the trunk, he continued along the strip, moving slowly, eyes scouring parking lot after parking lot. A few times he veered off the main road to take a closer look at a car that seemed to match Jerry's description, but each time he found the plates weren't from Wisconsin.

Finally, he reached the last motel and the road stretched into the distance, disappearing among trees and fields. Fighting down panic, Sam pulled over and snatched up the notepad again, staring at the scribbled words as if they might provide the answers he so desperately needed.

He still had no clue as to who had taken Dean or where he'd been taken, and the girl was gone. She might've headed back to Wisconsin, or continued on elsewhere, leaving him to look for the needle in the haystack. Sam stared at the names the waitress had suggested. Who was she? The more he thought about it, the less likely it seemed it was a coincidence that Dean had picked her up out of all the women in the bar. But why would she have it in for Dean? Was she an old lover whose heart Dean broke? Hell hath no fury, after all. But that didn't make much sense. Dean could be shallow at times, but he wasn't going to hit on the same girl twice without realizing it. Besides, Sam had spent almost every day of the last year and a half with his brother, and _he_ didn't think he'd ever seen the girl before, either.

Something about the two names tugged at his memory, but both were pretty common and he couldn't pinpoint what it was. He blew out a frustrated breath and ran a hand through his hair. It wasn't enough; he needed more to go on. He clicked the pen back on and started writing out different spellings and variations of the girl's name. Calleigh. Kathy. Katy. Kerry…

His hand stilled, tip of the pen against the paper.

Kerry…

From Wisconsin…

An eye for an eye… Payback.

Oh _crap_…!

He knew who had taken Dean… And he knew why…

Sam's blood curdled.

**Chapter 3**

After Kerry shut his cell phone off and discarded it on top of Dean's jacket on the chair, she didn't immediately return to his side. Dean decided that might be a good sign. At least she hadn't killed him yet. She was looking down at the knife in her hand, its tip wet with his blood.

"Look," Dean said, trying a new tack. "I don't know who you think I am but I'm sure—"

She was in his face before he could finish, the knife again pricking the skin right over his jugular. "Don't try to lie your way out, Dean _Winchester_," she hissed, her face so close to his that he could see spittle glisten on her lips. He gave a start at the use of his last name. How had she…?

"Yes, I know who you are." Kerry smirked, twisting her pretty face into something ugly. "Lying might've worked with the cops in Baltimore, but I know exactly what's going on. I know you're wanted for murder in more than one state. I know they think you killed those women in St. Louis."

She pulled away and started pacing. With the knife gone from his throat, some of the tension dissolved and Dean inhaled deeply.

"But they're all wrong, aren't they?" she said. "You're not the monster. Your brother is."

Dean's brows rose and he stared at her in confusion. What the hell…?

"Sam's the one who enjoys cutting people up, isn't he? Leave them to bleed out on the carpets in their own homes, like slaughtered pigs. And then you come in to clean up, to cover for him. Well, guess what, _Dean_? You missed something."

"Sam's never—" Dean began.

Kerry lashed out. She backhanded him so hard that his vision dulled for an instant. He could taste blood, hot and metallic, on his tongue. He swallowed it down and licked at his torn lip.

"I told you not to try and fucking lie to me!" she shouted. "Those women in St. Louis, the bank in Milwaukee, poor little Amy in Twin Lakes? God, she was _six_ years old."

Her voice caught on the last words and she drew a shuddering breath. Dean's brain was spinning, trying to make heads and tails of her words. The reference to St. Louis he understood, and Milwaukee too. Both times he and Sam got fucked over by a shapeshifter. But who the hell was Amy in Twin Lakes? And why did the name of that town sound so familiar?

A few deep breaths later, Kerry had regained enough of her composure to continue. She spat at him, "Your brother's a monster, and he needs to be stopped."

Goddammit, it was like Gordon Walker all over! Where did these people get those crazy ideas about Sam?

Kerry pulled back, chest heaving, eyes dark with fury as she stared up at him, silently daring him to deny her.

Dean obliged. "Look, there's an explanation for all of that," he said. "Don't you think I deserve the chance to explain? That Sam does?"

"A chance?" She barked an ugly laugh. "Like he gave my father?" she demanded.

Abruptly the pieces of the puzzle fell into place and the full picture emerged as clear as if it were only yesterday. Dean imagined he could still smell the stink of dried blood; he remembered its stickiness when he rolled over the corpse to discover the man's throat had been slashed from ear to ear with brute force.

"Wandell," he whispered. He felt sick to his stomach. How could he not have seen it before? "You're Steve Wandell's daughter. You were away in college."

"Yeah. Lucky me, huh?" Bitterness laced her voice, hardening it. "Or your brother would've slaughtered me too, wouldn't he?"

"Sam didn't—"

Without warning, the knife thudded into the wood not an inch from his head and Dean hissed in shock. He glanced at it out of the corner of his eyes, barely able to get the blade in focus, it was so close. It was still quivering.

"Jesus!"

He sought Kerry's gaze. Her eyes were wide and filled with the same kind of shock that Dean felt. Without a word, she spun away and ran from the cabin, slamming the door behind her with such force he could feel the impact in the wood beams.

Dean was left alone. He again tugged at the ropes holding him up, and they gave as little as before. There was nothing he could do but wait.

o0o

Kerry Wandell. The name kept repeating itself over and over again in Sam's head during the trip from northern Iowa up to Whitewater, Wisconsin. He drove as fast as he dared. His right foot itched to bear down on the gas pedal further, to push the powerful engine to its limits so he'd hurtle along the roads and highways but he didn't dare. If the cops pulled him over for speeding—that would only delay him more.

So he kept to the speed limit, cursing at every Sunday driver that made him slow down and every traffic light that forced him to stop.

Kerry Wandell. Sam recalled the lively, bouncy letter he'd read, the letter she'd written to her father and that Steve Wandell had left on his desk when he died. She'd signed her name in a firm, round script with a curl to the y. She'd written that letter before he—

Sam's mind balked and he didn't finish the thought. The car in front of him braked, red warning lights glowing, and Sam slowed down as it drifted into a leisurely right turn off the road and into some mall's parking lot. As soon as the road before him was clear again, he pressed down on the gas. The Impala roared and sprang forward. Sam drummed his fingers against the steering wheel.

A short time later he crossed the Mississippi and entered Wisconsin. At least another hundred miles to go before he reached Whitewater. He wasn't even sure he'd find Kerry there. Was Dean going to pay the price for his crimes?

"No."

Sam wasn't aware he was speaking out loud until he heard the sound of his own voice over the drone of the engine. He pressed his lips together in determination. No. He'd find them. He'd get Dean, and he'd explain to Kerry what had happened. It wasn't fair that Dean should suffer for the mistakes he'd made. He just prayed he wouldn't find them too late.

At last the exit for Whitewater came up and Sam turned off the Interstate. He followed the narrower US 12 until some twenty minutes later he reached the town limit. It didn't take him long to find the Wandell residence again; though several months had passed since he and Dean had found Steve Wandell murdered in his own home, the route had been etched onto Sam's memory and he found the house without hesitation.

He parked around the corner; he didn't dare risk the Impala sitting at the curb as a sign for anyone that might've seen it those long months ago, when he and Dean broke into the house. Though the day had been fair and warm, gray clouds were moving in from faraway Lake Michigan, and the wind picked up, bringing a chill that bit through his jacket as he climbed from the car. The house was silent and still, with the curtains closed despite it only being late afternoon. There was no sign of Kerry's pickup in the driveway—or any car, for that matter. The place oozed emptiness. He'd seen enough deserted houses to recognize the feel. Sam's heart sank. She wasn't here—Dean wasn't here.

Still, he had to make sure. He walked up the steps, the third one creaking beneath his weight, and eyed the security cameras. They were inactive; no lights blinked on them, and they didn't follow him as he moved. Sam snuck a glance around, but with the weather changing for the worse, people had withdrawn indoors and the street was deserted. It took him mere seconds to pick the lock and open the door.

The air inside was stale, and a little musty. Another sign that the house had been unlived in for a while. Sam wasn't sure if it was his imagination, but he thought he could detect the faint metallic scent of blood beneath the odor of abandonment, and his stomach clenched.

On silent feet, he wandered through the hallways and rooms. As he had suspected, the house was empty. Dean wasn't here.

Unsure what to do next, he peeked into each room until he found Kerry's: soft pink curtains, movie posters on the walls, a couple of teenage romance novels on the shelves. Sam walked in, hoping the girl's possessions might offer a clue that would lead him to Dean. A photo album was lying open on her bed and he moved closer to examine the pictures that showed Kerry and Steve Wandell in better days. Both were smiling at the camera and the date next to the photos stated they were taken last Christmas. Sam stared at the photos for a long minute. It was probably one of the last times she'd seen her father alive.

Sam flipped backwards through the album until he came to a set of older snapshots of the Wandells, smiling and squinting against the sun, posing on the steps of a log cabin. The water of a lake glimmered among the trees in the background. Kerry was perhaps thirteen or fourteen years of age, wearing braces. She was arm in arm with a woman in her late thirties or early forties. The woman resembled Kerry a lot; their smiles were like mirror images, and Sam guessed she was Kerry's mother. He wondered for a moment what might've happened to her before he decided it didn't concern him. What did matter, were the photos themselves. _Holiday 1999, Lake Arbutus_, someone—probably Kerry—had written in a girlish script at the top of the page. The _O_ had been converted into a smiley face.

It could be nothing. It could be that the family had simply rented a cabin for their 1999 summer holiday, but… It was all he had.

Sam tugged one of the photos loose from its page and left the room. Downstairs, he went back to Wandell's office, the last place he wanted to be. He tried very hard to ignore the rusty brown stain on the carpet. It wasn't easy, and his eyes kept straying to it even while he rooted through Wandell's desk. He hoped to find more information on the woods cabin at Lake Arbutus.

Luckily for Sam, Wandell had been a meticulous man in life and it didn't take him long to locate a stack of file folders in one of the desk drawers. The words _Lake Arbutus cabin_ were written in neat script on the outside of one of the folders. Sam put it on the desk in front of him and flipped it open. Inside were several invoices, and a property deed: the Wandells had bought the cabin in 1996. More importantly, the deed contained an address; the cabin was in Hatfield, a summer resort on the shores of Lake Arbutus.

Sam couldn't help saying a brief prayer of thanks at discovering the address. It was still a long shot, and Lake Arbutus was near Black River Falls, several hours away. If he was wrong, he'd have wasted a lot of precious time. But it was the best lead he had, and Sam had a sense that Kerry might actually want him to pick up her trail so he simply refused to believe Dean wouldn't be there. He could only hope he'd be in time to stop her from taking her revenge out on Dean.

_Hang in there, Dean_, he thought. _I'm coming_.

o0o

After Kerry stormed out of the cabin against a gust of cool, fresh air, Dean took a deep breath. He wasn't sure if she'd intended to really hit him with the knife and he simply got lucky, or if she'd missed on purpose. Either way, he'd nearly gotten skewered. His heart thumped against his ribs and his mouth had gone dry. He worked his tongue around to get the moisture flowing.

"That was too damn close," he muttered once his voice worked again. He squinted at the knife, the blade a dull orange from the glow of the distant hearth. He wondered if he could get to it so he could cut himself free, and twisted around experimentally. Pain shot through his arms and shoulders and he groaned, biting his lip. He waited for the pain to subside a little and tried again.

But after a while, when his shoulders throbbed so badly the slightest movement brought tears to his eyes, Dean had to admit defeat. The sharp knife, so tantalizingly close, might as well have been on the other side of the room for all the good it did him. With his arms and hands numb from the ropes cutting off the blood flow, and his toes barely scraping the floor, he simply couldn't get the leverage he needed.

"Goddammit!" he swore.

Sam would be looking for him and trying to come to his rescue, of that Dean was sure. Problem was, he didn't want Sam to find him. Kerry Wandell had lost her father in a gruesome way and she thought Sam was responsible. If she got her hands on Sam… She'd made it very clear she was craving payback. Dean didn't know how she had found out about Sam—they'd deleted all the security camera footage and destroyed the computer, hadn't they?—but she had. And she didn't seem very willing to listen to Dean's explanation that it hadn't been really Sam who opened up her father's throat and made him bleed out in his own home. Not that Dean could blame her—he'd probably respond in the same way if he were in her shoes.

But damn, she'd caught him blindsided. For weeks after they depossessed Sam, he'd worried how the Wandell murder might come back to haunt them—Bobby had even warned them in so many words. But Dean had believed any danger would come from Wandell's hunter buddies. Never had it crossed his mind that it would be Wandell's frickin' daughter who'd come after Sam, hell-bent on revenge. He was just immensely grateful Sam hadn't been interested in Kerry's flirting; Dean didn't think that if their positions had been reversed, Sam would still be alive. He, on the other hand, seemed to have a chance to get through to her. He was still breathing, wasn't he? And she'd had plenty of opportunity to kill him while he'd been out. But he'd have to tread very carefully. The girl was like a cocked gun, and the knife stuck in the wood beside his head was proof that the wrong word could make her go off in an instant.

**Chapter 4**

Kerry stayed away a long time. Long enough, that Dean began to wonder if she planned to return at all. Part of him hoped she wouldn't come back, although then he'd have to rely on someone else to find him and free him before he starved to death. Another part of him hoped Kerry would return. He wanted to explain to her that it hadn't been Sam who killed her dad. She had a right to know the truth.

Dusk fell over the cabin, deepening the shadows within. The windows were too small to let in much light to begin with, and the fire had died down to red, glowing embers. Dean drifted in and out of a pain-induced slumber. The door squeaked open, startling him awake, and his head shot up. For a brief moment, Kerry's form was outlined against the dense forest outside. She shut the door behind her and lit a few candles. Dean's eyes watered at the brightness; he'd been in the dark for so long.

Kerry watched him for a minute, a curious look he couldn't quite name on her face, before she pulled the knife from the wall. Dean held his breath, and only let it out slowly after she turned away. She dropped the knife on the nearby table and disappeared into another room that Dean assumed was a bedroom. She returned a moment later, carrying a laptop.

"Let me show you something," she said. She put the laptop on the table next to the knife, turned it around far enough that Dean could see the screen, and fired it up. "My father," she explained while the computer went through its startup cycle, "was a bit of a gadget freak. He was experimenting with a small, motion-activated camera that nobody knew about but me. You missed it during your clean-up. It captured everything."

Dean swallowed. _Shit._ "That's how you found out about Sam. About us."

Kerry nodded without looking at him. She fiddled with some of the keys.

"But you didn't tell anyone," Dean continued. It wasn't a question. Bobby had seeded the hunting community's grapevine with a couple of false leads to throw anyone that might come looking off of Sam's scent. Dean knew for a fact that a skinwalker was generally thought to have killed Wandell. "Why?"

She shot him a look, holding his gaze. "He was my father," she said simply.

Dean found himself nodding in understanding.

She hit a button on the keyboard. The next instant, he was seeing once again how Sam slashed Steve Wandell's throat. Full-color, crystal clear imagery. Sam straightened, wiping his hands on his shirt and leaving bright red streaks. Dean swallowed; despite knowing what had really gone down, it wasn't any easier to watch the demon wearing his brother's face murder a fellow hunter a second time than it had been the first.

A few seconds after Sam left the room, and Wandell lay bleeding out on his carpet, the image shifted. Dean saw himself and Sam enter the study. He watched as he rolled Wandell's body over and observed how he wiped their prints away, cleaning out the study and destroying the computer, while Sam sat and read Kerry's letter.

Kerry shut down the laptop. "How could you ever defend yourself against that?" she asked, her tone bitter. "What could you possibly say to exonerate your brother?"

She'd crossed her arms before her chest and was looking up at him with dark, hooded eyes. Dean's glance flicked to the knife on the table behind her before he brought his gaze back to meet hers.

"It wasn't… You don't have all the facts," he muttered, knowing how weak it sounded.

"I know what I saw," she said. "Your brother murdered my dad in cold blood. And you helped him cover it up." She started to walk back and forth in front of him, nervous, like a caged cat that might pounce any second. At least she hadn't picked up that damned knife yet. "It took me a while to find you," she continued. "But here we are. You got no idea how I've longed for this day, lived for the chance to get even ever since I came home and found his body."

"You're the one that found your father?" Dean asked softly. They'd planned an anonymous 9-1-1 call once they were clear away, but then Sam had knocked him out and disappeared to Duluth to harass Jo, and it had simply fled Dean's mind. He'd never expected Wandell's own daughter to be the one to find him, though. "I'm sorry…"

"I bet you are," she snarled, whirling.

"I… panicked," Dean admitted, "I didn't know what else to do. And I'm sorry, I should've handled it differently, but Sammy… it wasn't him. He was possessed by a demon named Meg." He gritted his teeth at the memory. "May the bitch burn in hell forever."

"Possessed, huh?" Kerry glared at him. "That's rather convenient, don't you think?"

o0o

It was full dark by the time Sam reached the dirt track leading deeper into the forest and to the cabin. He parked the Impala beside the road in a small clearing carpeted with pine needles. He didn't want to alert Kerry Wandell with the deep rumble of the V8 engine.

He got out, checked his gun to see it was properly loaded, and stashed it against his back, firmly lodged in the waistband of his jeans. He shrugged deep into his jacket; the calendar might proclaim it spring, but the weather was cold for the time of the year. Getting out the penlight, he shone the beam across the rutted path and loped through the darkness as fast as he dared.

The cabin wasn't far. It was situated less than a mile from the main road, near the lake. Through the trees, the water shimmered dully. The building itself was a hulking black shape among the trees. A pale orange glow leaked from a small window beside the door and a dark-colored pickup with Wisconsin plates had been parked beneath a couple of trees to the side of the house. Sam smiled grimly to himself. Someone was home.

He switched off the flashlight and waited a minute to let his vision fully adjust to the darkness. He put the light in his pocket and took the gun out. Using what little illumination spilled out from the cabin, he sneaked up the porch and knelt beneath the window. Muted voices drifted out.

_"He was possessed at the time, by a demon named Meg." _

Dean's voice. Sam closed his eyes for a moment as relief flooded through him and he let out a soft breath. Dean was alive. He hadn't come too late.

_"Possessed, huh? That's rather convenient, don't you think?_"

The voice was female, and laden with harsh sarcasm. That had to be Kerry Wandell, Sam thought. Was she alone in there with Dean? He straightened a little, peering over the window sill. He couldn't make out much beside the shape of a couch and the red glow of a fire place.

Sam lowered himself, pressing against the rough wood walls, and waited. He strained his ears, trying to make out if there were other voices beside Dean's and Kerry Wandell's. He didn't hear any.

Dean spoke again. "It's also true. Look, if you want to blame someone, blame me, not Sam. I'm the one that should've noticed something was wrong. I'm the one that should've stopped him in the first place. And I'm the one that tried to cover it up."

_Oh, shit, Dean._

The girl murmured something that Sam couldn't make out. Then she said, "It doesn't matter. You're both guilty as hell. You've seen the footage. Camera doesn't lie. And it's not just my dad, either. I'd be doing the world a favor to rid it of you both."

He didn't dare wait any longer. Gun in one hand, Sam reached up for the doorknob. It twisted slowly in his grip.

o0o

"Then go ahead and do it, " Dean snapped. "Pick up your knife, and kill me."

He was getting really tired of having to defend himself or Sam against crimes they hadn't committed. He never balked at admitting a wrong he was responsible for but how could he admit guilt for deeds he hadn't done?

Goading her like he did, was taking a serious risk, though. A gamble that could very well end up with him being dead. But he thought—hoped—it wouldn't end that way. During the day, something in Kerry's demeanor had shifted. When he woke up in the morning with that pounding headache, she'd been prepared to slit his throat without a moment's hesitation, Dean had no doubt about that. But later, _now_… She'd had ample opportunity to kill him—it wasn't as if he could do much to defend himself—yet he was still breathing the slightly stale air of the dusty cabin. He suspected she'd begun to realize that coldbloodedly killing a man wasn't as easy as she'd thought.

"No, please, don't," said a soft voice.

Dean's head snapped up in shock the same instant Kerry whirled around and snatched the knife from the table. Dean's breath caught. Sam was standing in the doorway, the night dark behind him.

Shit. He'd hoped to talk Kerry out of her wish for vengeance and prevent this confrontation.

Candle light glinted off a gun in Sam's hand. Well, at least he'd come prepared. Sam crossed over the threshold and gently shut the door behind him. Kerry took a step back, closer to Dean, brandishing the knife and gripping it so tightly that her knuckles turned white around the haft. She was breathing fast.

Sam froze as soon as she moved. He glanced at the gun in his hand, almost as if he wasn't sure what it was for, and tilted the muzzle down, away from Kerry. Dean's brows rose.

"Sam, what—"

Sam ignored him. He kept his eyes trained on Kerry as he slowly lowered the weapon and placed it carefully on a small cabinet beside the door. He lifted both his hands, palms out.

"Well, if this isn't a crappy rescue," Dean muttered.

For a brief instant, Sam's gaze flicked in his direction. "Shut up, Dean." He looked back at Kerry.

"I'm sorry your father died," Sam said. He kept his voice low and his tone filled with empathy the way only Sam could. "But if you want to blame someone for his death, it should be me, not Dean."

"Sam!" _Goddammit_, he was gonna get himself killed if he kept talking like that.

"Please, let my brother go."

Kerry hesitated. Her back was turned to Dean. Her full attention was focused on Sam and her shoulders were stiff with tension.

"Don't listen to him," Dean pleaded with her. "He's nuts. It wasn't his fault."

Kerry paid him no mind, and neither did Sam; it was as if Dean no longer existed.

Sam took another step further into the room. "It was my hand that held the knife, my hand that sliced your father's throat." His voice caught on the last word.

"Dammit, Sam!" Dean shouted. "How many times do I have to say it: you were fuckin' possessed!"

But he might as well have been shouting from behind an inch-thick sheet of glass for all the attention Sam and Kerry gave him. Dean pulled on the ropes with all his might, ignoring the fresh blast of agony that exploded through otherwise numbed nerves, or the way they cut into his flesh. The rope didn't give; his feet still had no purchase and he could only watch helplessly as Sam gave himself up to Kerry in an attempt to save his brother.

"That's a lie." Kerry never took her eyes off of Sam.

But at least she'd heard him, and she sounded not nearly as sure as she had a short while ago, when Dean first mentioned the demon. He took that as a good sign. Perhaps he was finally getting through to her.

"No," Sam said softly. "It isn't. I wish to God it was, but Dean's telling the truth." He'd reached the middle of the room and sank to his knees, trembling. He was no longer watching Kerry. His gaze had gone out of focus, staring wide-eyed at something only he could see. "I was awake for some of it," he mumbled, speaking more to himself than Kerry or Dean. "There was blood. So much blood."

Dean stilled. He listened, entranced by Sam's voice while his brother brought up memories they'd never discussed again after they'd sent Meg to hell and left Bobby's.

"It enjoyed their terror, their pain. Got off on it." A shudder ran through Sam's body. Spell-bound, Dean could only watch. Kerry seemed glued to the spot. She stood as rigid as a statue, the knife firm in hand but seemingly forgotten

"Your father… He resisted. He fought. It liked that," Sam whispered. His voice was barely audible and his eyes swam with tears. "I can see them now. Your dad… and… oh God…" He made a noise that sounded suspiciously like he was choking.

"Sam…?" Dean muttered.

Sam curled in upon himself and wrapped his arms around his stomach. Shudders ran through him and he dry-heaved as he struggled for air. Sam lifted his face to look up at Kerry. His skin had gone pale, and strands of too-long hair clung to a sweaty forehead. He looked as he might chuck up any moment.

"There was… a little girl, too… wasn't there?"

Kerry nodded. Tears streamed down her face as she looked down at Sam. A sob escaped her. "Amy…"

What the…? Dean remembered something Kerry had said earlier about Amy, a six year old girl from Twin Lakes… Suddenly, it clicked in Dean's mind. Twin Lakes was the town where he had found Sam again.

_Oh, crap, Sammy._

What an idiot he'd been. Sam had been gone for an entire fuckin' week, manipulated into action like a puppet, with that goddamn bitch pulling the strings. The demon had killed Steve Wandell, gone after Jo. Of course there had to have been more victims. But Dean'd been so relieved to have Sam back that he never stopped to think about it. Bobby had helped lay a false trail and given them their talismans, and he'd just dragged them into the next hunt, keeping Sam busy so he wouldn't wallow in guilt. He should've know it'd come back to bite them in the ass somehow. Shit like that always did.

"I did that," Sam murmured to himself, reliving horrors from the past. "My hands." He held them up, staring at his fingers as if he expected to see blood still stain them. "You should end it," he said, voice quavering but filled with determination. He shrugged his jacket off of his shoulders and tilted his head back, baring his throat. "Here and now. Before—" Sam didn't finish, but Dean knew what he'd been meaning to say. _Before I turn evil._

"No, Sam, don't!" Dean shouted. "That's not gonna happen. We can work this out. Just—"

The words died on his lips. Kerry closed the last few feet between her and Sam and put her blade against his brother's throat. Dean didn't dare blink. Kerry was shaking, and the knife trembled against Sam's skin. Dean wanted to look away, or close his eyes, but found he could do neither.

For what seemed an eternity, nobody moved. Outside, the wind had picked up and was whistling around the cabin. The embers glowed in the hearth. Somewhere in the distance, a coyote howled.

Then the knife fell away from Sam's throat and clattered to the floor. Kerry collapsed next to it. She wrapped her arms around herself.

"No," she whispered, rocking back and forth. Then, louder, "No!"

Heavy sobs started to wrack her body, making her shoulders shake.

Dean found he dared breathe again. It was over. Sam was safe.

"Sam?" he ventured hesitantly. "Little help here?"

o0o

They left Lake Arbutus at sunrise, heading south. The May storm had blown over overnight, and the sun was out, warming the air. The radio played loud enough to drown out the purr of the engine. Dean was driving with one hand; the other rested lightly in the window. His shoulders were stiff and sore, his back hurt like a bitch and bruises showed around his wrists where the rope had cut into his flesh, offsetting the healing bat cuts on his arms. The bruises were dark purple, and Dean knew they'd turn blue, green and yellow as well before finally fading. He was no stranger to bruises.

Sam slouched in the shotgun. He'd tucked his knees tightly against the dash and rested his head against the seat back. Dean glanced sideways to see if he was sleeping, but Sam's eyes were wide open, staring off at nothing. Dean sighed. Nobody could mope like his little brother.

He reached for the radio and turned the volume down. "Sam?" He shot another look sideways but Sam refused to return it. "What the hell were you thinking back there?" The question had been on his mind ever since he'd watched Sam bare his throat in open invitation. "Giving yourself up without a fight? Wandell wasn't your fault, and you know it."

Sam shrugged. "I feel responsible."

"Well, you're not. When are you gonna get that into that thick skull of yours? Even _she_ knew it, at the last."

"I know." Sam was quiet for a minute. "I remember it all, Dean."

His voice was so soft, Dean almost missed it.

"What?"

"I remember everything," Sam said again. "Every goddamn minute of that goddamn week. I remember Jo. I remember—"

His voice cracked, and Dean regretted ever bringing it up. Sam turned his head. He looked out of the window, away from Dean.

"If you ever… um… you know, want to talk about it…" Dean offered.

Sam turned back. A ghost of a smile played around his lips, though his eyes, dark with sorrow, shimmered with tears.

"I know. I will. Thanks."

Dean pressed the gas pedal a little deeper, and the Impala roared in response. The road led into the distance, the sun beating down on the blacktop. They'd be all right. They had to be.

***


End file.
